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Show United States Department of the Interior National Park Service I National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 Beck, Reid, House Name of Property OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) Salt Lake County, Utah County and State In the early summer of 1917, J. R. Allen, a Draper resident and member of the school board of the Jordan School District, was so impressed by the teaching methods of a young principal named Reid Beck in Provo, Utah, that he offered him a substantial increase in salary to become the principal of the Draper Park School. Reid Beck initially declined the offer. Reid Beck was born in Spring City, Utah, in 1887. He graduated with a teaching degree from Brigham Young University in Provo in 1908, the same year he married Annie Passey (1890-1918) of Mesa, Arizona. Reid and Annie Beck had four children, three daughters and one son. Reid Beck was serving as the principal of the highly-regarded Maeser School in Provo when he was approached by J. R. Allen. 13 After further negotiations, Reid Beck accepted the offer, which included the privilege of bringing eight teachers with him, including six from the Provo School District. 14 According to local tradition, the offer also included the former Green-Rasmussen home to live in, which was located only half a block away from the Draper Park School. Reid and Annie Beck moved to Draper probably in time for the beginning of the 19171918 school year. However, Annie Beck tragically died of complications from influenza and childbirth on November 25 , 1918. On June 18, 1919, Reid Beck married Wilda Maycock, one of the teachers who had transferred from Provo to Draper the previous year. Wilda was born in Springville, Utah, in 1890. After they married, Wilda continued to teach for a few years while helping to raise the children. In 1927 another family tragedy occurred when Reid and Annie' s only son, Reid W. Beck, died of leukemia at the age of twelve. In addition to his teaching duties, Reid Beck served as the bishop of the Draper Ward for five years. He often met with members of the ward in the little office on the south side of the house. In October 1935, Wilda and Reid Beck purchased their home from the Jordan School District. They used the upper floor of the home as a boarding house for the convenience of single female teachers at the Draper Park School. In the meantime, Reid Beck had continued his own education, completing his bachelor's degree in 1929. He was also working on his master's thesis at the time of his death, on December 21, 1943. Beck died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident on an icy road not far from his home. Reid Beck's achievements and significance as an educator in the Draper community were noteworthy for the time period. Most of the teachers who became principals in the emerging Utah public school system were Utah natives or later arrivals that rose through the ranks. Aggressive recruitment efforts, such as that of J. R. Allen and the Jordan School District, were rare. At the time, Reid Beck' s incentive package of a salary increase, a hand-picked teaching staff, and a home was unprecedented. The gesture represented how determined the Draper community was to maintain the quality of education set by Dr. John Park. In her tribute to her father Vanice Beck Black wrote: A new principal and all but two of his faculty literally descended upon the little community of Draper determined to build a school which would be a credit to them all. That same kind of cooperation between teachers and students, teachers and principal, and between principal and students, existed as long as Reid Beck was principal at Draper. . .. His principalship and his influence in the lives of those who knew him can be favorably compared to that of John Rocky Park, the man who made Draper famous. 15 As an educator, Reid Beck was associated with two important school buildings in Utah, the Maeser School in Provo and the Draper Park School. However, for many people in the Draper community, his home was the building that is most closely associated with him. As bishop ofthe Draper Ward, he met many of them in his home office. Vanice Beck Black described the close association between her father and the community residents: "He was so much a part of the lives of people in this community of Draper that he blessed their babies, baptized their children, performed their marriage ceremonies, taught grandparents, parents, children, and then spoke at their funerals ." Reid Beck' s twenty-six years in Draper was the most productive time of this life, both as an educator and as a community leader: 13 The Maeser School was named for the prominent Utah educator, Karl Gottfried Maeser. The building was listed on the NRHP in June 1982 (NRIS # 82004177). 14 The eight teachers included his brother, Erastus Ray Beck; sisters, Freda and Edna Jensen; sisters Wilda and Ella Maycock; Elma Haymond; Lida Hermer; Ruth Lindsay; Marguerite Williams; and Albert Southwick. Not all stayed to teach in Draper. History of Draper, Volume One: 101. 15 Ibid. 9 |
